Oil cooler or Head Gasket?

[xxshepxx]

Aquired a mk4 golf gti with a 2.0 8v

It's a non-runner (battery is completely dead)

It was given to me on the understanding the HG was gone in it, although this has never been confirmed nor tested.

I went out to have a look this morning, and there is more oil in the header tank than I would imagine for the HG to be gone. it's like pure oil in the header tank.

Anyone got any experience of these engines? I think my first port of call is charge the battery overnight, then by-pass the oil cooler to see if it mixes?

It has an extremely clean body, and is a 3door decent spec gti, so I'd prefer not to scrap it, My intention was to do an engine swap, but may just run it if its going to be an easy enough fix

[h8v]

I'd test the oil cooler first, as that's considerably easier than changing the head gasket.

Maybe just remove the water pipes from it and connect them together with a piece of metal pipe and jubilee clamps, then flush out the cooling system, using some biological washing powder to help.

When the cooling system is free from oil, try running the car and see if the coolant still gets oily, or perhaps if oil leaks out from the oil cooler.

Hope it's the oil cooler!

[Wayne]

As above, bypass the cooler and flush the system

[chris_d66]

Hi
If the oil cooler had failed I would expect to see coolant in the sump, best thing to do first is a compression test and if possible a pressure test on your cooling system.
Also if some one has mixed the coolant with older G11 it will give a nice oily looking texture to your coolant.
What does the oil in the dip stick look like and have run the engine.

[Gti_Jamo]

Oil cooler / heat exchanger failure wont mix water with the oil but rather only the other way about given oil pressure easily overcomes water pressure.

[Bellend]

Headgaskets on these are a piece of piss.